Makhaya Ntini is still one of our favourites

Not so long ago, we quite genuinely lost our temper with people pronouncing singer-songwriter Paolo Nutini's name exactly how it's supposed to be pronounced. We blithely assumed that it was spelt 'Ntini' and pronounced accordingly. We've since refined our view. We now believe that Paolo Nutini's name is both pronounced AND spelt wrong.

Earlier in the year, we went Makhaya Ntini mental for about a day. We haven't lost interest. Well, we have a bit, but that's only natural. We get a bit over-enthused about things when we're 'in the moment'. Afterwards we become more reasonable and less frighteningly intense.

South Africa have beaten India in the second Test and Ntini was 'the man'. There's been proper cricket in this series with lots of scores of 200-and-odd and none of the massive scores that are becoming increasingly common. Bowlers help in this regard. Makhaya Ntini is a particularly good one.

Ntini took a tidy 3-41 in the first innings but followed that up with something even better. He took India's first five wickets and reduced them to 83-5. If only he could have picked up a couple more, but sadly not. He finished with 5-48.